


Once upon a time...

by fardareismai



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/M, Tumblr Prompt, Urban Fantasy, fairy tale AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-21
Updated: 2019-05-21
Packaged: 2020-03-08 20:56:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,243
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18902503
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fardareismai/pseuds/fardareismai
Summary: Tumblr prompt: NinexRose - “my best friend got turned into a frog and now i’m being the best wingman/woman/person ever by carrying them around to bars and getting hot people to kiss them in hopes of hooking them up with their true love” AU.





	Once upon a time...

**Author's Note:**

> This is one of my best Tumblr prompt fics. It's one I should seriously consider turning into a real story someday...

It wasn’t technically  _unheard of_  for something like it to happen- everyone had hear of it, after all, back when their parents or grandparents were kids- but it wasn’t the sort of thing that happened  _anymore_.  After all, the last of the wicked witches and evil fairies, and wicked stepmothers had been vanquished  _ages_ back.  They’d even gotten rid of the monarchy, so there weren’t any princesses to kidnap or kings to enslave.  Mostly everyone just used magic for normal stuff- heating lunches when the breakroom microwave was on the fritz or keeping street lamps from burning out every time a vampire walked by them.  And while your grandmother might complain that things had been  _so much_  better in her day, you couldn’t really deny that the number of wolves eating little girls was way down.

It wasn’t outside the realm of possibility though…

Neuf ( _the ninth child of a woman who lived in a shoe and had so many children… well, you know the rest.  She’d named them all after their birth order to keep them straight_ ) sat down at his usual seat at the local tavern and set the frog on the bar next to him.

“No amphibians on the bar unless you want me to pop them into the stew,” Rose, the owner, said.

In the old days, Rose might have been a lost princess or a dragon’s ward, but these days she just ran a clean pub for the local misfits and used a bit of magic to keep the weathered wood of the bar and tables from getting sticky.

“It’s Jack,” Neuf said, nodding at the frog.

“What’s Jack?” Rose asked.

“The frog.”

Rose frowned at him.  “Neuf, sweetheart, nobody turns people into frogs anymore.  It’s bad taste.”

He rolled his eyes.  “When has bad taste ever stopped Jack?  He did it to himself.”

“Did what to himself?”

“Turned himself into a frog.”

Rose blinked in confusion.  “Why would he do that?”

Neuf shrugged.  “I don’t speak frog.  Best I can tell, he was trying to cast a spell to find his true love.”

That made Rose sigh in pleasure.  “Aww, that’s sweet.  Like the old stories.  I suppose a princess’ll have to kiss him, will they?  Or… well… it’s Jack, so maybe a prince.”

“That kind of business is  _camp_ , Rose, not  _sweet_.“

“Where’d he even find a spell like that, eh?  No one does that kind of thing anymore.”

Neuf blushed.  “One of my books.”

Rose’s eyes widened.  “You?  Mr. ‘polish the glasses yourself, Rose’?”

It was true- Neuf was known for being very anti-magic.  He regularly espoused the virtues of “elbow grease” when Rose snapped her fingers to make the glassware sparkle.  She usually rolled her eyes and ignored him.

“What did you have it for then?  Looking for your own true love?”  Rose leaned forward to give her friend a peek down her bodice (if he wanted it) and a flirtatious smile that had her tongue caught in the corner of it.

Neuf’s ears went even redder.  “Of course not,” he said gruffly.  “Don’t believe in that stuff, me.”

That caught Rose by surprise.  “You don’t believe in true love?”

Even if the witches and wolves were gone, their world was built on the basis of true love.  To not believe in it was like… not believing in sunsets or snow.

“No, it’s not that I don’t believe in true love, I do.”  His blue eyes met hers as he said this last, and Rose shivered at the intensity there.  “But you can’t find it by magic.”

“Well, it looks like Jack is going to have to try,” Rose said.

The frog had climbed the side of Neuf’s tankard and dropped into the ale there.  The tankard was now only half full and the frog was swimming in circles.  Rose reached in and plucked the creature out, setting him on the bar.

“Shouldn’t you two be out there trying to find him or her then?” Rose asked as the little green frog staggered across the top of the bar, leaving slime and beer behind.  “You’re not going to finish that drink, are you?”

“God no, throw it out.  Jack’ll owe me once he’s back.  And I brought him here ‘cause I figured you could help.”

"I’ve been single the entire time you’ve known me.  What gives you the idea I know anything at all about finding true love?” Rose asked, annoyed.

“Well… you seemed the most likely candidate to be Jack’s true love.”

Rose stared at him with her mouth open for a moment.  “What!?” she finally managed to get out.

Neuf shrugged.  “I mean, look at the pair of you.  You look exactly like the ones in the old stories- beautiful blonde maiden-” he ignored Rose’s sarcastic snort, “and handsome blue-eyed prince.  Match made in storybook heaven, right?”

“I am  _not_ Jack’s true love,” Rose said, flatly.

“What makes you so sure?”

Now it was Rose’s turn to blush.  “I just know, okay.  Jack and me are friends, got it?  Nothing more.”

“Oh come on and give it a try, I can’t keep a frog as a roommate, he can’t pay rent!  Just one kiss.”

Rose scowled.  “I’m not putting my mouth on that filthy thing.”

The frog suddenly jumped up and down like an excited puppy.  Any doubts Rose might have had to the creature’s identity before vanished.  It was Jack, and he’d just thought of a filthy joke about her poorly phrased objections.

“Come on, Rose, why won’t you try?” Neuf wheedled.  “You and Jack always dance together and you’re close.  Would it be so bad to be his true love?”

Finally Rose exploded.  “I already  _know_ who my true love is, Neuf, and it’s not Jack bloody Harkness!”

That made him sit back.  “You… you do?  Is it Mickey?” he asked, thinking of the one ex he could remember her ever having spoken about.

“God no.  My true love is too bloody daft to have even noticed me.”

Neuf blinked.  The idea of Rose Tyler’s love being unrequited was beyond foreign to him- he’d been mad for her since first he’d walked into her pub.  It was why he’d brought Jack by today- to ensure that she was happy, and would stay in his life, even if she wasn’t with him.

“Who’s your true love, Rose?” he asked, quietly, leaning forward on the bar.

Rose looked supremely unhappy.  “You can’t just tell your true love that kind of thing, can you?  It doesn’t work that way.”

It took Neuf several seconds to work out what she had said, and what it meant.  “Me?  I’m your true love?” he whispered.

Rose wouldn’t look at him, and that seemed to answer his question.

“Rose,” he whispered.  Suddenly he leaned across the bar and, taking her head in his hand, kissed her with twice the love he thought his heart could hold.

“It worked!” came a loud, cheerful voice from beside them.

Rose and Neuf broke apart to see Jack Harkness stretched at length on the bar, completely naked.

“Get your arse off my bar,” Rose said without surprise.  “I have no idea where it’s been.”

Neuf, displaying significantly less sangfroid just stared with his mouth open.

Jack took pity on his old friend and, once he’d swung his legs down off the bar, patted him on the shoulder.

“It was a spell for finding true love.  Not necessarily  _my_  true love, silly!”


End file.
